LEARNER'S GUIDE TO SCILAB

Scilab is a scientific software package for numerical computations providing a powerful open computing environment for engineering and scientific applications. Scilab is free software. It is currently used in educational and industrial
environments around the world. Scilab is the responsibility of the Scilab Consortium, launched in May 2003. There are currently 18 members in the Scilab Consortium1.

Scilab includes hundreds of mathematical functions with the possibility to add interactively programs from various languages (FORTRAN, C, C++, JAVA…). It has sophisticated data structures (including lists, polynomials, rational functions, linear systems…), an interpreter and a high level programming language. Scilab has been conceived to be an open system where the user can define new data types and operations on these data types.
A number of toolboxes are available with the system:
• 2-D and 3-D graphics, animation
• Linear algebra, sparse matrices
• Polynomials and rational functions
• Interpolation, approximation
• Simulation: explicit and implicit systems of differential equations solvers
• Scicos: hybrid dynamic systems modeler and simulator
• Classic and robust control, LMI optimization
• Differentiable and non-differentiable optimization
• Signal processing
• Graphs and networks
• Parallel Scilab
• Statistics
• Interface with Computer Algebra Maple
• Interface with Fortran, C, C++, Java, LabVIEW
A large number of contributions can be downloaded from Scilab Web site.

Note: Scilab-5 is governed by the CeCILL license under French law and abiding by the rules of distribution of free software. You can use, modify and/or redistribute the software under the terms of the CeCILL license as circulated by CEA, CNRS and INRIA at the following URL http://www.cecill.info.

Objective:
This is a 2 full-days introduction course to provide the participants with a platform to learn Scilab quickly and successfully. Therefore, the participants equipped with the knowledge of Scilab to address and solve real engineering & science issues, similar to the commercial software MATLAB

Duration:
2 Full Days

Content:

Getting Started with SCILAB
• What is SCILAB and its benefits
• Starting SCILAB Interface
• SCILAB Work Directory
• Important Menus within SCILAB
• Getting and Using Help

Basic Operations and Input/Output with SCILAB
• Expressions in SCILAB
• General Objects in SCILAB
• Input/Output in SCILAB environment
• Variable Handling and Management
• Command History and General Commands
• Case Study

Working with Arrays
• Creating and Manipulating Arrays
• Array Accessing and Addressing
• Arithmetic Operations with Arrays
• Systems of Linear Equations
• Built-in SCILAB Functions for Analyzing Arrays
• Case Study

Basic Programming
• SciPad Editor
• Creating Script File (*.sce)
• Creating Function File (*.sci)
• Comparison between Script Files and Function Files
• Online / Inline Function
• Handling Strings in Programming
• SCILAB Program Generation
• Case Study

Plotting and Visualization
• 2-D Plotting
• Labeling and Annotating Graphs
• Types of 2-D Plots
• Function Plotting
• Surface Plot (3-D)
• SCILAB Demonstrations
• Case Study

Conclusion
• Area of applications for SCILAB
• More documentation and online help
• Installing SCILAB in your home PC
• Summary & Conclusions

Who Should Attend:
Researchers, Lecturers, Scientists, Engineers and Managers that are not familiar but yet interested in using Scilab for their teaching and R&D work. This hands-on course with case studies is designed mainly for beginners and MATLAB users who are interested in learning a technical computing software that is similar to MATLAB.